The whippoorwill calls.
We hear it from the swing.
Piles of grandchildren
laughing as dusk falls.
Lightning bugs dance
as they try to escape
the hands of Summer children.

The whippoorwill calls.
I hear it from the bedroom.
I came to visit Mamaw
all the way from college.
I worry about her
since Papaw died.
The somber sound reminds me 
of the sadness in her eyes. 

The whippoorwill calls 
but I can’t hear it.
We all grew up and 
scattered like the lightning bugs.
Mamaw sits alone now
barefoot in the swing.
Listening to that lonely sound.

I must begin making my list
of succulents, aloe’s green salve
spread across the pox of sunburn
while I scratch sand from my scalp,
leftovers from an afternoon of salt
sandwiched between two slices of rye.
I like my lunch late after the air warms
and the sun turns its face downward.
I like my supper when the sand
no longer burns the soles of my feet.
The skin on my legs and arms
is pink and raw and stings to touch,
but is so close to you,
radiating like a sunburned child
who’s left her basket just below the tide.

this drive is cobwebbed memories,

I keep a list of the lost in my phone
I look at it sometimes when I feel alone
Just some folks who remind me of home
I think of all the places we’ve gone
All the places we’ve roamed, planes and trains and boats that we’ve boarded
Knowing that it wasn’t where we were or where we were going,
But that the journey was more important
But who knew that it would be this short-lived?
Who knew that the last time I saw you,
Would be the last time I saw
You
And I feel like I owe you all an apology
Because I can feel you watching me
And I know you’re proud of me
But I’m not gon hold y’all, this grief? This hurt?
Feels like sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool
And I’m running out of room to let any air
Out or in and I’m
Literally waiting in my skin for
Someone or something to do me in
Maybe a chance to begin again or
To be another name that people use in
Past tense
And every day yet and still I’m convinced
That this grief I feel
Isn’t permanent
And that instead of people potentially Adding me to
Their list
I’m reminded of all of the reasons
That I still continue to
Exist

The first girl 

Only after it’s been sunny for a while,
just a few raindrops needed, 
and that smell that everyone recognizes 
but doesn’t have a name for.
Wet blacktop, wet earth.
Even in the city, you can smell it.

I can still smell the fire

I take a walk on Dividing Ridge Road
with a three month old baby 
in my arms to give
the parents an extra half hour
of shut-eye.
The heat of the day
is beginning to rev its engines
but the uphill portion of our lane
is shaded with locust trees
and the cool air of morning
is falling on our united bodies.
Oh, what a privilege
to hold this infant
whose world is coming into focus
as he is beginning
to keep his head erect

He lives in Brooklyn 
and this week is his first visit
to our neck of the woods

With him i try to experience this moment
as if for the first time
the strange sound of cicadas
the fading perfume of honeysuckle
the low hanging branches of the pines
the rush of air through hackberry leaves

When my mind comes back
to the old man that I am
i calculate that if he lives as long as i
the world will be well into the next century,
it’s not a thought that steadies my heart

AS we reach the top of the rise
where the woods are thickest
I Press him close,
suddenly there is the slow guttural call
of the yellow-billed cuckoo,
a bird often heard but seldom seen,
its rattling gulps and hollering hoots
cause us to spontaneously shiver

The more technologically advanced we get,
the more rudimentary we become.
The less we communicate in person, and
the less we patience we possess.
Social media has presented a false sense of reality and
so many are portraying fantasies packaged as truths.
Not much is original anymore.
Everything is massed produced.
The sensation to go viral over morality, common sense, and/or safety
is so scary.
People are dying to be popular…literally.
And the ones they want engagement from
probably wouldn’t engage with or entertain them face-to-face.
We are so ahead but so behind.
There’s some solace in knowing history repeats itself.
My hope is we go back to the days where we actually remembered people’s phone numbers.